Author: Calvin

Poor* Theresa May. Upstaged in her long-trailed traipse to Florence to talk substantially to the UK media and her own immediate Cabinet colleagues (no-one from the EU actually being there) about her ‘vision’ for the future, firstly by her own Foreign Secretary [firewall] and secondly, and far more importantly, in Rome the day before by Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, this was a speech whose prospective import was, as it turned out, far greater than the actual substance.

Barnier is absolutely correct in observing that May’s speech needs to be turned – and urgently – into substantive negotiating points which the respective teams can tackle in the next, and subsequent, weeks. The obvious point to make is that, six months into a (maximum) two-year negotiating period for exit (which encompasses the time to secure the necessary approvals, including from the European Parliament), this is no time to be (re-)setting out a vision for the future. If the UK needs a two-year extension to the negotiating period, this is symbolic only of its own lack of preparation prior to triggering the Article 50 withdrawal process, and the absolutely shambolic domestic political process which has succeeded it. Furthermore, May’s observation that ‘throughout its membership, the United Kingdom has never totally felt at home being in the European Union’, and that the EU ‘never felt to us like an integral part of our national story’ was both rude and ignorant. What – never at home despite all the opt-outs which the EU granted the UK, on adopting the Euro, on Schengen and on the European Social Charter? Never at home despite the single market being the singular idea of Lord Cockroft, Thatcher’s own EU Commissioner? Never at home despite the maths of the referendum vote failing to provide any sort of endorsement for such a view? Personally speaking, I’ve never felt less at home in the UK in the period since the referendum – based, substantially, on the petty nationalism that has come to mark our national political discourse, bank checks on immigration status being but the most recent example. If we’d made more effort to integrate, to understand the EU’s political processes and, more so, to involve ourselves in them, such an observation might have been better founded. But, we did not and, therefore, it is not. We never even tried.

More to the critical point, we still have no strategy for Brexit, no graspable endgame. it’s not so much that the UK government isn’t levelling with people on the trade-offs that will be required to make any sort of a purse out of the sow’s ear of Brexit, it’s that – as the TUC’s statement in response correctly observes – we have no realistic negotiating strategy at all. Quite simply, we don’t know what we’re doing.

I wanted, however, to make one critical observation of my own. For a speech whose title was ‘shared history; shared challenges; shared future’, May spent an awful lot of time talking about ‘me’. The section on citizens’ rights – so critical to the lives of so many people here in the UK and in the rest of Europe, and so important to the EU’s negotiating agenda – was just 255 words long but featured the pronoun ‘I’ no fewer than nine times, and the pronoun ‘we’ no more than five (and some of those being part of May’s attempt at rhetoric). (Aside of no fewer than three references to ‘I want’, which would have got me short shrift as a child!) In the rest of the speech, May referred to herself in the first person singular no fewer than forty times. An odd thing, don’t you think, in the context of a speech whose text was ‘shared’? And in the context of seeking a deal in the best interests of the UK, not to speak of favours, with the skilled, expert, well-prepared negotiators sat on the other side of the table? Unless, of course, May was indeed using the occasion to rehearse her speech to the Tory Party Conference next month, and to support her ever-declining level of authority in her own Party. But, then again, that is really what Brexit is about, isn’t it: the Tory Party’s own attempt to settle its own internal politics regarding the UK’s relationship with the EU. Our own domestic politics – and despite the outcome of the election – has become simply subservient to the selfish interests of the Tory party whose packing of House of Commons committees is simply the most obvious symbol of the failure that our democracy has become.

On my trip to London referred to in my post below, my Caledonian Sleeper – already detoured around the Fife coast route which meant that it was stopped in Perth station for a good additional half an hour (although, paradoxically, this was actually to allow the timetable to catch up) – was then held in Oxenholme for some considerable time (I was, mostly, asleep but it was for a couple of hours). Flooding had apparently got into some boxes of electronics and this prevented the signals from functioning. Sleeper staff eventually appeared to advise us that we were running considerably late and that we could be in London quicker by changing at Preston and then Crewe (a usual stop on the Sleeper but no longer intended for this one) as its late-running nature meant that it had been diverted on to the slow track and was therefore liable not to be in London til nearer 11 o’clock – arriving thus some three hours late.

I did as advised (I wasn’t in a rush, but slow-running trains, in my experience, only run slower): but, dear reader, passengers on late-running Caledonian Sleeper trains are entitled to a refund (of 100% of my ticket price), as we were informed by helpful staff, when journeys are disrupted (including as a result of weather events). (The link is heavily promoted on the front page of the website, something which I have always found rather odd.) Given my thoughts in my earlier post about refunds on public transport journeys: what to do now? Essential fact disclosure: Caledonian Sleeper has, since 2015, been run under a separate contract by controversial public services international conglomerate, Serco. Research shows Serco’s industrial relations – including on the Sleeper itself – to be poor; and its activities in running asylum centres have also put it under the spotlight. This might indeed, and in spite of my earlier thoughts, be the time for a little financial correction, intended as a reminder to Serco that it needs to sharpen up its act.

Furthermore… the things you hear on trains (no. 46 in an occasional series): the Virgin train I caught at Preston was unable to serve hot drinks from the onboard shop ‘as a result of the volume of passengers’. Including a 20 or so minute wait on a northern rail station before 7.30 AM it had, I thought, up to that point, been a hot cup of coffee sort of morning. Clearly Richard Branson needs to invest in a bigger kettle, or otherwise stump up the money for another 50p for the leccy meter. The jolly Scouse guard on the (Virgin) train I then caught at Crewe apologised, on arriving into London a few minutes late, stating that the train had had to pick up extra passengers. I think they meant me. Thanks for that.

Monday this week found me heading back to the mainland, ahead of a trip to London on Wednesday (I like to be on time). This was not my usual trip, since high winds had prevented the Lord of the Isles from its usual dock at Mallaig on Sunday, diverting instead at the last minute to Oban, and this was the planned arrangement for Monday, too, since the winds were at least as high again. Going into Oban was a new route for me – I know Oban well (it has a good distillery with a generous tour) – but I had never before travelled into Oban from Lochboisdale and, seasoned ferry traveller that I am, and fortified early on against the swell by one of CalMac’s black pudding and fried egg rolls (and a granola fruits of the forest yoghurt, in the interests of a balanced diet of course), I was looking forward to the trip.

In particular, I was looking forward to catching a glimpse of Tobermory’s famous painted houses lining its waterfront: the route into Oban flows through the slim Sound of Mull separating Mull from the Morvern peninsula and I was anticipating being able to take a few good shots, especially with the weather clearing rapidly to blue as we entered the Sound, from a cloudy grey and misty Uist, and with increasingly good quality light. In reality, the Sound is a lot wider than it looks on the map and Tobermory’s harbour turns out to be well shielded from the channel by a rocky outcrop: distracted also by a church on the Morvern side located typically remotely, i.e. with no obvious access, I didn’t see the waterfront until the very last moment and then only in retrospect, and for literally a few seconds through a slim channel to the south-east before the houses disappeared from view (serves me right for looking forward only to a glimpse!). Still, here’s my best shot:

Oban is somewhat handier for Perth than Mallaig, being almost 50 miles closer and a journey more or less due east along the A85 (although I was travelling (initially) by the lower branch of the West Highland rail line down to Glasgow and thus my journey took me along two sides of a triangle. The joys of public transport…) Nevertheless, the question of financial ‘compensation’ arose given that CalMac provide some sort of refund where travel arrangements are disrupted, albeit for technical breakdowns. I did lose the return portion of an advance, non-refundable Citylink ticket from Mallaig to Perth which I booked last time I left Perth’s fair city but, aside of that, I don’t think I’d be bothering even were I eligible.

Firstly, the notion of ‘compensation’ for public transport ‘failures’ is a peculiarly Tory (specifically Majorite) policy which sits very oddly with the ethos of the delivery of a public service (and which also ends up starving public services of the financial resources for improvement, thus increasing the likelihood of future failures). People on public transport try very hard to deliver me from A to B and I’m usually very grateful for their efforts and their hard work. The ‘right’ to financial compensation is also a highly individualistic response to what is ultimately – and which needs to remain – a collective problem, and that ain’t no solution at all.

Secondly, I might accept the notion of compensation – in general – where it entails some actual inconvenience – but delivering me closer to my actual destination (and, ultimately, some 20 or so minutes quicker than my original route would have done) is stretching the definition of ‘inconvenience’ (pace the lost bus ticket). Furthermore, I think I’m also pretty grateful for those who decide that the challenges of docking a sizable ferry boat safely in Mallaig is potentially more traumatic than it’s worth when the wind is gusting to over 40mph (the approach to Mallaig harbour along the rocky shoreline ordinarily leaves me wondering whether actually jumping over the side and wading ashore, surely getting no more than my knees wet, is a seriously viable option – it looks no more than about 70 yards from ship to shore).

And, thirdly, seasoned traveller that I am, I’ve always taken the view that the journey to arrive at a destination is worthwhile in itself – that travelling is not a means to an end but an opportunity for enjoyment in and of itself. This was a new route and, therefore, an opportunity to experience something new. Travel stoically, and with a good book, is a good motto – and Madeleine Bunting’s esoteric, thought-provoking search for a definition of home, not least in a time of nationalisms, is a terrific companion, not least on this journey (if here undertaken somewhat in reverse).

So, no, I don’t think I’d be claiming ‘compensation’, thank you very much.

So, then – Perth (one more time). And just a day too late to join Sunday’s counter-demo against the SDL, which I would absolutely have done had I been here at the right time. Fascist b&stards. Not in my Perth.

The sun having not quite yet set sees me still in Perth, continuing to pack boxes with useful stuff and filling PKC’s recycling dumpsters with my rather less useful stuff. Following my previous post about missing bits of Perth, here’s a slightly indulgent post listing a small selection of things in this same direction (and avoiding the rather more obvious touristy stuff you can get up to in Perth’s fair city):

1. The Kirkside. Perth’s not blessed with really great pubs but this is a gem. Now with beers from Perth’s Inveralmond Brewery, including occasionally Thrappledouser, which featured in a BBC quiz on ‘delicious but faintly ridiculous beer names‘, there’s good beer and good company – and Tina and the current owners, and Geoff and George before them, alongside the staff and the regulars, have always offered friendship as well as being really good neighbours.

2. Marek and Magda and staff at Cafe Tabou for top quality food and drink and customer service, and for delightful anticipation every time I step in. And for Innis and Gunn on draught.

3. Terrific curries – especially the Murgh Handi – and top traditional service (including lemon towels – much appreciated!) from Ifty and Imran, the extremely friendly front of house people, of Nawaab (a fine family restaurant located in a beautiful building, too). Food served with a flourish and a sense of occasion. Good luck, guys.

(Perth, being a member of the Cittaslow / slow food movement, does have really good restaurants!)

5. Perth’s wonderful floral displays, especially at the top of the wonderfully-named Needless Road just outside the city, and all around the city centre. Even in late summer, the old, and loved, City Hall is still beautifully adorned:

6. The view as the evening sun shines on the red sandstone of the building which now houses Katy’s Company bridal shop (and formerly Kippen Campbell, solicitors) and which is properly known as the Kirk Session House of St. Johns, built in 1910 (the Session House would be the place where the church elders gathered to govern the affairs of the Church and, perhaps, to collect funds for the poor. The reference in this link to the Session House being used to keep a watch over the graveyard is also interesting although, in Perth’s history, the graveyard had long gone by 1910. It may of course have been part of the function of any previous Session House located on the same spot, or otherwise nearby.)

7. The rather lovely tune that the Carillon at the historic St. John’s Kirk plays every day at 3pm (I’ll be missing the 8am alarm call followed by a bottom-heavy and somewhat ponderous Greensleeves rather less, though).

Speaking of which, here are just a couple of other things I’ll not miss:

1. Trudging across town, overloaded plastic carrier bags in hands struggling to contain various items of glass, plastic and paper, past some no doubt bemused shoppers and tourists, to do my recycling. It’s not a long walk – probably about half a mile distance from my flat – but PKC really do need to get recycling initiatives properly sorted out for us town centre residents, in the absence of which it’s certainly not easy being green.

2. The sights and sounds of plastic rubbish bags, guts spilling out after well-targeted attacks by assorted gulls and crows, when walking through the city streets early on residual rubbish collection days (Tuesdays and Fridays). PKC absolutely need to get that sorted, too.

Perth’s been good to me. I’ll be back – not least for one more trip in the middle of next month – but, after that, more likely only as a visitor rather than a resident. Exit (pursued by a double-headed eagle).

Sunset on Friday night, taken with my low-pixel smartphone (hence the grainy, somewhat impressionistic approach) just before quarter to nine, looking west along South Street, Perth (South Street runs east-west; neither is it the most southerly road in Perth’s grid system; and it leads to the middle of Perth’s three bridges over the Tay. There must be a reason for this name, although I’ve never yet been able to establish it…).

I am currently in Perth and will be here for the immediate future as I have just managed to sell my flat, courtesy of the hard-working folks at Next Home, and there’s a lot of stuff (an awful lot, given that administration of my paperwork has never been my strong point) to pack up and shift out (I’m expecting record tonnes of paper recycling being achieved by Perth in this quarter!). On top of quite a bit of incoming editing workload, in addition to two major ongoing projects, I’m going to have my work cut out over the next couple of weeks. I bought the flat at the tail end of 2008 and, in terms of central Perth prices for flats, as well as in terms of economics, it’s been pretty much a lost decade (even if not one of lost equity) – although my story might well have been a little different had PKC got on with redeveloping City Hall (which my flat overlooks, and which was key to the original decision to purchase it) rather than wasting much of the intervening period fighting Historic Scotland over its demolition. Now those plans are – at long last – starting to crystallise, with the decision as to which architect to go with being announced last Wednesday, I wish the new owners better luck with their investment!

Since the sale, I’ve had many people question whether I’ll miss the place – and I will, I guess, although I’m not sure it’s possible to miss a building, only the people and memories that have populated it and given it life. By my reckoning, my flat in Perth is the tenth place I’ve lived in and built memories in during my life (of 53 years, and counting) and, being well underway with the eleventh, I do wonder how many more there’ll be. Certainly I’ll be missing Perth (and city centre living), and Southern Fried, but I’ve been living away from here now for a year, and people change, and move on; and it’s the right time to finish off this particular chapter and continue actively writing the new one – in which direction, of course, the sale proceeds will (hopefully quite soon) come in very handy.

In the meantime, if anyone does have a use for Red Dwarf VHS tapes, do give me a shout…

My inbox brings me news of An Toradh / The Harvest – a weekend festival of food (and drink!) and writing in Uist taking place towards the end of August. Seeing as this brings together several of my favourite things, I was keenly awaiting the full programme; I knew of some parts of it, but this is the first time I have seen the full shebang.

And what a programme it is! I was knocked out by the breadth of issues being covered during the event – which seeks to celebrate the food we make, eat and sell on the Uists – and by the range of speakers engaged for the festival. Launched under the auspices of Ceolas Uibhist, the Gaidhlig language culture, heritage and arts organistion, the festival might be only in its first year but it offers some forty or so events and already offers the look and feel of an established event (which indeed I hope it becomes). Among the events many will pick different highlights but I’m particularly looking forward to the Uist Noir writers’ workshop on the Friday evening, featuring three local women writers and including the terrific Libby Patterson, as well as a couple of foraging workshops on both land and sea. Oh, and the Westford is also offering a beer festival.

The establishment of the festival identifies two things for me: the range of very highly-talented folk who live on the Uists, with many of the speakers and the events being led by people from the islands; as well as the dynamism of the existing arts and culture organisations on the Uists without whose efforts and drive the festival would not exist. Together, both of these highlight the Uists as a thriving, dynamic place in which to live and work, and, in helping to provide the southern islands with a voice, will also contribute greatly to the level of presence required to keep the islands on the map as a continuing force. On top of a highly successful second year of Eilean Dorcha, the Uists really are establishing themselves as a place to be at the minute.

EDIT: 2 September. I was still in Perth last weekend packing up, and so am truly sorry to have missed this event. But I should point out for the record that Toradh was organised by a range of Uist community organisations and businesses in partnership.

I have, on occasion, kept rooms in pubs ‘entertained’ by reading from a book grabbed from bookcases provided by thoughtful publicans, so this taut, short novel about a man who reads aloud to fellow passengers on his morning commute short sections of literature retrieved randomly from the throat of the book pulping machine in his workplace, had instant appeal.

A little old now (published in French in 2014, and in this English translation in 2015), Jean-Paul Didierlaurent‘s first novel (although the author is already an international prize-winner for his short stories and this is, in reality, a novella) is likely to be the choice of many book clubs and thus needs little by way introduction. Ultimately a romance, and which calls to mind aspects of the whimsy and the gentle good humour both of Amelie,Gregory’s Girl and Sliding Doors, The Reader on the 6.27 is likely on the surface to appeal or to repel readers on that basis.

It does, nevertheless, remain absolutely its own work and there are occasional dark elements to the theme and to the plotting which absolutely defy a categorisation of ‘romance’. Guylain and Julie, the two lead characters who are both searching for something and who fall into each other’s lives by fate, are both strongly drawn while the minor characters in the cast might be bit-part players in the story but all enjoy the luxury of Diderlaurent’s attention to detail which brings them to a fully-drawn 3D life. This includes The Thing, the massive beast which pulps the books where Guylain works and whose relationship with it is a strong feature of the development of the work. Even the goldfish – who shares a name with the author of what became La Marseillaise – also provides an interesting comment on the continuity of la Republique. The scenes – short chapters all and many of them short stories in their own right – offer colour, drama and poignancy and are also superbly sketched and located (including where Julie’s aunt gets her weekly fix of chouquettes). Diderlaurent has a very light touch and the ending is both well-judged and finely tuned to the novel’s theme of the predominance of fate and in how ordinary people lead their lives.

In the circumstances, it would be churlish to wonder how a lover of literature finds himself working in a book pulping plant, which is only making him more unhappy than he already is; and how an intelligent woman finds herself in a career as an attendant in a shopping centre lavatory but who is clearly able to overcome the unhappiness of such an existence. We know little of the backstory of either – and neither, essentially, do we need to given the theme. We may each of us find ourselves in inexplicably lonely situations or in workplaces in which choice is sometimes little evident or the product of paths created from previous decisions, and that lends reality to Diderlaurent’s wry, clever observations on modern life/work and modern (workplace) relationships. And I think it would also be churlish to criticise a slightly haphazard sense of timing with regard to the readings of the extracts.

And, in closing, a word for a generally first-rate translation by Ros Schwartz (and also Ruth Diver) which has a rhythm and a flow which allow the story’s love of words to breathe. A highly-experienced and rated translater, Schwartz has done the author a great service which is illustrative of the resources which the publisher has committed to it. A book which is, ultimately, about the love of words and whose story is so well crafted demands a great translation, as well as a print run on appropriately high-quality paper, and this one has both.

Aha – the postie just brought some great news: Bottoms Up IPA, along with a side order of Dilly Dally English Pale Ale, courtesy of the good folks from Kirkcaldy at Brew Craft Beer and a product of a Twitter advertising campaign from the company which cropped up on my feed earlier this year (these things do work: and it’s a bit scary that it does!).

It’s a kit, of course, and a real one involving proper malt, yeat and hops – no chemical flavourings – as well as a need to understand the intricacies of the wash, sparge and boil stages of making good beer. Bottoms Up IPA promises me ‘floral and tropical aromas … bursts of fruity, citrus hoppiness with grapefruit and orange bitterness … and a sweet biscuity maltiness’ while Dilly-Dally is a ‘bright, coppery English Pale Ale, [with] a maltier base [than its American cousin], with a touch of caramel, as well as a gentle woody, floral aroma.

The kits don’t come cheap – at £12 for enough ingredients to make 4 litres of beer, that works out at about £1.70/pint. Plus delivery plus equipment plus time (and plenty of the latter, by the looks of it). Nevertheless, any attempt to become my generation’s Logan Plant has to start somewhere.

I will be blogging some more about this once I get up and running with it. Or, if it doesn’t quite work out, look out for a few tweets instead.

Just need the time to get the kettle on, now. In the meantime, I have instructions to study… and, I suspect, to learn by heart if I’m not to be juggling saucepans, thermometers, very hot water and pieces of paper with writing on it.

I picked this up in an airport bookshop fairly recently, and for the first time. It seems that it has been given a new lease of life as a result, most likely, of the re-release of the 1975 Oscar-winning film by Milos Forman. My Penguin Classics copy was printed in 2005, and contains a new introduction written in 2002 – in the book’s 40th anniversary year – but with the new edition sparked by Kesey’s death from liver cancer (in 2001).

The novel remains an excoriating drawing of the life and treatment of the residents of a hospital mental health ward, for which Kesey’s research is legendary: a night shift worker at the Menlo Park Veterans’ Hospital, he volunteered for government-sponsored research (actually: CIA) into the effects of psychoactive drugs. His research bears strong fruit in the book in terms of the processes, the approaches to treatment and the effects of institutionalisation on the residents of the ward, and it makes some dramatic points about the brutalising impact of the remorseless, ratchet-like regime of ‘Big Nurse’, the female figure in charge of the ward. As the story cranks up towards its tragic, inescapable conclusion, the end does not leave the reader without hope and it is a continuing reminder of how thin the line is which divides clarity (and sanity) from confusion (and clinical madness); and not only when clinical madness may be being faked.

The allegorical aspects of the work, with the galvanising effects of McMurphy (the Jack Nicholson character in the film) on the atomised, isolated residents of the ward, speaks clearly of the importance of working together, as a collective, and of the vulnerability of people who only learn both that, and the power of the collective, unevenly and over time. At the same time, the costs of leadership, of bringing people together to challenge the authority to which they are subject, are made clear. The story is told through the eyes of ‘Chief’ Bromden, a man of native American descent, and whose previous encounters with authority give him insight into the powers of ‘the Combine’ which he understands as the power behind the organisation of wider society replicated within the power structures of the ward.

And yet some aspects of the book have survived very, very poorly. There are (very minor) references to under-age sex within McMurphy’s backstory. More overtly, there is an astonishing amount of casual racism in the novel: Bromden himself is the stereotypical dignified Indian, apparently a mute with a deeply-buried story to tell; the African-American aides in the novel – frequently un-named and in many ways Nurse Ratched’s dogsbodies – are lazy, speak in a stylised way, like basketball and are fond of a joint. And the language in which they are addressed is frequently that of Mark Twain, although my concern here is less the choice of language in a modern-day setting than the manner of their depiction and their witless insertion as black men into low-lying roles within the prevailing power structure as servants of it.

But my biggest criticism is of the levels of sexism within the novel in which the only female characters are, with just the one exception, either mothers or sex objects; while Nurse Ratched herself is frequently depicted either in an amorphous, asexual way or, alternatively, as the target for the most appalling fantasies, including in her humiliation at the novel’s conclusion. This is not to feel pity for Ratched, which would be difficult given the brutal nature of her role in charge of the ward and in the psychological aspects of the central part she plays in its tragic conclusion, but I am seeking to highlight the shockingly sexist manner of her portrayal, as well as of that of the other female characters, throughout the novel. It would be stretching the point beyond snapping to argue that Ratched is as much a victim of the Combine as the residents – there is absolutely no evidence for this – but we do need to be aware of the misogyny which underpins the ways she is depicted and the way she is viewed by the residents. Given the theme of male panic over emasculation which is also a feature of the novel – an odd theme even now in a society which remains patriarchal – Kesey was certainly aware of some aspects of how he approached his theme.

In both its racism and sexism, the book is thus of its time, although this by itself should not excuse it. We have, thankfully, come a long way in race and gender politics since the early 1960s (as well as having still a long way to go, as Andy Murray demonstrated only this week). However, in terms of criticism, this makes the novel less of a ‘roar of protest against middlebrow society’s Rules and the Rulers who enforce them’ (in Time‘s review quoted proudly on the back cover of my copy). The role that sexism and racism play within middlebrow society’s Rules (and power structures) means that no such roar can take place within the confines of a novel unless that novel consciously seeks to overthrow them – and so much less so when it incorporates them as an integral part of its telling, as this one does. (A telling which is, extremely disappointingly, echoed within the 2002 Introduction, by the way.)

To the modern reader, then, this is a novel with sizable structural weaknesses – which, incidentally, an aware editor could address, and reasonably simply. This is a great shame since, at its best, it has a powerful story to tell and does so, in other respects than these, with great skill and realism. But, these are weaknesses that are too great to overcome when they play such a central role in how that story is told. Whatever tripping that Kesey and his Merry Prankster mates were doing on the road, this might well have inhibited an awareness of the problems of patriarchalism which, thereafter, took at least another decade to emerge.